


"Are You Human?"

by squirenonny



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:38:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4472660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaladin and Shallan play Twenty Questions...kinda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Are You Human?"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OreliaW](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OreliaW/gifts).



“Are you human?”

“Not really.”

Kaladin squints hard at the ceiling, but he lets this one pass. Shallan has some strange ideas about humanity in the wake of a thousand Soul-to-Soul conversations with inanimate objects.

“Are you an animal?”

Shallan snorts with laughter. “No. Well. Not actually.”

His brow furrows. “Inanimate object?”

“Nope.”

Kaladin hesitates, because there aren’t a whole lot of things that don’t fall into one of those three categories. “Are…you alive?”

“Kiiiiinda.” There’s a smile in Shallan’s voice, and Kaladin doesn’t dare turn his head to look at her. She’s draped over the arm of the couch, Kaladin flat on his back on the floor, a coffee table loaded with snacks between them. All he can see at the corner of his eye is her feet, kicking at the air with a self-satisfied sort of bounce.

He scowls. “Are you a fictional character?”

Shallan’s laughter is muffled by the couch. “That has nothing to do with degree of alive-ness.”

“It could,” Kaladin mutters. “I know of at least a few semi-dead fictional characters.”

For a moment, Shallan’s hand joins her feet in the air, flapping an argument she’s too lazy to make. “Fine. No, I’m not a fictional character.”

Kaladin mulls that over, swiping his hand across the tabletop until he finds the remains of their second bowl of popcorn. He pulls it off the table, sets it on his stomach, and thinks.

“Are you an existential concept?”

“What does that even mean?”

“Like….hope. Are you hope?”

A handful of M&Ms—mixed with just enough Skittles to piss Shallan off—rain down on him. Laughing, he shields his eyes.

“I’ll take that as a no?”

“No. Be serious, Kaladin.”

“I _am_. Wait.” He turns, narrowing his eyes at the poof of bright red hair visible over the soda cans. “You’re not me, are you?”

“Stormfather! I certainly hope not.” Shallan props herself up on her elbows, arching her eyebrow at him. “How does that even work? I already said I’m not human and not alive.”

“Not ‘really’ human and ‘kinda’ alive,” Kaladin corrects, air quotes as bitingly sarcastic as he can make a silent twitch of his fingers. “For all you know, I’m really a vampire.”

“Are you now?” Shallan tosses a pack of Red Vines at his face.

Kaladin wrinkles his nose and scrounges up the Twizzlers instead. “Heathen.” He bites off the end of one and points it at Shallan. “I am. Just because Rock’s cooking has worn down my fangs doesn’t mean I’m not a vampire.”

Sighing, Shallan buries her face in her hands. “Kal. Come on. What am I?”

“A devious little sneak.”

“No.”

“A self-congratulatory, witty cheater with a thing for wordplay and double-entendres who’s probably decided she’s Dalinar’s _ear hair_ so none of her answers make sense.”

This time it’s a pillow that comes his way. Kaladin Lashes it to the ceiling.

“No,” Shallan says. “Thanks for the idea, but no.”

“You’re a terrible friend, Shallan.”

“No, I’m not. Also, _rude_.”

Kaladin heaves a melodramatic _Shallan_ sigh and spreads his arms over his head. “Okay, well, I have no _storming_ idea what you are, then, because apparently you’re not anything—Stormfather. I swear to the Almighty, Shallan, if your answers are all based on puns I’ll shove these Twizzlers down your throat.”

“Keep your red plastic nightmares out of my face.”

“Keep your puns out of my twenty questions.”

“You’re at thirteen, by the way. Better hurry up.”

Kaladin bites into a fistful of Twizzlers. “I thought we decided we weren’t keeping track.”

“Of course we aren’t,” Shallan says. “You don’t start getting slap-happy until at _least_ the mid forties.”

“I’m glad you find my emotional crises entertaining.”

“Every time, Kal, every time.”

A low buzz of voices announces Pattern and Syl’s arrival. They’re arguing again, though Kaladin can’t be bothered to figure out the topic of the hour. He has to try to think like Shallan. She’s as devious as she is smug, and whatever she’s picked to be her answer is probably going to have Kaladin seeing red.

“Ooooh!” Syl darts over to the coffee table, her own argument forgotten. “Are you playing a game?”

“Twenty questions,” Shallan says.

Kaladin snorts. “Infinity questions, more like.”

Excitement practically radiates from Syl’s tiny, translucent body. “I like that one! Ooh, ooh! What have you figure out so far?”

“I’m a vampire, Shallan’s a terrible human being—sorry, not-really-human being—and this game blows.”

Syl frowns, then turns to Shallan. “What’s he figured out so far?”

“Hey!”

Shallan ignores Kaladin as thoroughly as does Syl. “I’m not really human, not actually an animal, not an inanimate object, kind of alive, and not Dalinar’s ear hair.”

“Hmmm.” Syl taps her chin, humming a nonsense tune as she considers.

Then, suddenly, she straightens.

“Wait! Are you me?”

Shallan grins.

Kaladin shoots upright, knocking the bowl of popcorn to the floor. “You’re joking.”

Cackling, Shallan grabs a pillow to fend off Kaladin’s barrage of candy, pretzels, and lollipop sticks. She’s wheezing with laughter long before he runs out of ammo, but somehow manages to find the air to speak. “One of these days, Kaladin, you’re going to remember spren exist.”


End file.
